Laura van den Berg - Find Me

In Paola, Kansas, two horses gallop into our path. One is white, the other sorrel. They seem to come out of nowhere. The driver hits the brakes and yanks the wheel. The bus shoots to the side. I’m thrown forward in my seat. I bite my bottom lip and taste blood. The horses slip on the road, heads raised high, manes billowing. Their running is frantic, without sense or direction. The bus stills. I press my hands against the window and think about how I used to dream of me and Louis leaving the Hospital together and boarding a bus just like this one and watching the landscape pass.

My hands leave twin palm prints behind on the window, the fingers bleeding into each other.

I lean my head against the glass and close my eyes, wanting to drift off, wanting to dream about anything other than the Hospital. I remember Rick’s Laws of the Road, him telling me to never sleep in the company of strangers, but on the bus his voice gets smaller and smaller until it’s gone.

When I wake, there are woods on either side of the road. I look out and see two black tires hanging from the branches of a tree, secured by thick hay-colored rope. The rubber circles sway on the branches. They look like nooses.

We break through the woods, surrounded once more by flat white fields. I see a young man in a flannel jacket, standing by an old hatchback on the side of the road. Louis, I think for a moment, touching the cold glass. He calls out and waves. The bus gains speed as we pass, spraying his pants with snow.

The first sign of the city is the Missouri River, the water black and snaking in the night. A rail yard with tracks like thick veins in the ground and smokestacks netted in tiny orange lights. White loops of rising smoke. A tall silver skyline in the distance.

In Shawnee, we pick up a man wearing glasses so large and dark I think he must be blind. He sits next to me, even though the bus is still empty, and I consider the questions I could ask him, as a test. Do I look like I’ve always had this haircut? Do I look like I have a mother? Do I look like I have all my memories? Do I look scared? Does the skin on my fingers look dead?

In Kansas City, we pass an empty square and a bronze statue of a winged horse. In the Hospital, I imagined the cities were once again filled with brightness, the clatter of alive bodies, but this one looks dark and hollow, an underground system that’s just been pulled into the light.

I decide to get off on Seventh Street. As I move down the aisle, I think of what I could say to the driver. I want to tell him those affirmations, those meditations, never worked out for me or for anyone else in the Hospital I left behind. I am still living not because of what I thought but because I moved.

“I am alive,” I say instead.

On the street, I am dazed by the height of the buildings. It feels like being dropped in the center of a tall and intricate maze. On the corner, a man in a trench coat is selling hardback books titled Does Death End It All? I don’t see a single person in a suit or a mask.

In a trash can, I find a pair of green gardening gloves, the palms stained with oil. They smell like gasoline. I put them on.

A block down, there’s a motel called the Walnut. From the parking lot, the building is U-shaped and I count three concrete levels, each bordered by a railing. I find my way to a dim front lobby. The carpet, a pattern of red and gold diamonds, is musty and damp. I think of all the good our Floor Group could do in here, with our caddies of cleaning supplies.

No one is at the font desk. On the counter, there is a little ceramic dish of mints. I eat one and it turns into a sweet cloud on my tongue. A white plaque advertises a heated swimming pool, only “heated” is spelled “hated.” I ring a buzzer and a man with a little black mustache zips out from behind the curtain, quick as a minnow. His skin is smooth and pale and rolled with fat.

“How much for a room?” I ask. My voice sounds hoarse and strange.

“Seventy,” he says. “Call it the postdisaster discount.”

I tell him I can’t pay for a room up front. A fly buzzes around the man’s head.

“We’re not a shelter,” he says.

“There are shelters? Around here?” A shelter sounds like exactly what I need, even though I know words aren’t always what they claim to be.

The man shakes his head, starts shuffling papers. The fly shoots away and gets lost in the curtains. He’s losing interest in me.

“I can get you the money.” The words come in a rush. Of course, I have no idea about getting anyone any money. What about the duties of Floor Groups and proper procedures in the Dining Hall and tests? I’m not used to a world where the rules change as often as the weather, a world that runs on cash.

The man stops shuffling and looks at me. I notice a dot of blood in the corner of his eye.

“I mean it.” I press my hands on the counter and am startled by the green gloves. Where did these hands come from? “You can trust me.”

“Trust is out of style.” The man fusses with the collar of his sweater. He lets out a little laugh. “Or was it ever stylish? I can’t say that I remember.”

I lean against the counter, because my body has gotten very heavy. I’ve never been to Kansas City before and the longer I stand there, in the murky light of the lobby, the less certain I become that Kansas City is where I really am. I can still feel myself walking the Hospital halls, my slippers sliding across the floors, my fingers moving over that patch of bubbled wallpaper, the cold on the windows.

I look again at the man. I do not know where to go or what to do.

“There must be something you need as much as money. I could wash dishes. I could clean rooms.”

The man picks a ball of lint off his sweater. “What exactly are your skills?”

“Anything,” I say. “I’m a fast learner.”

“I’m no teacher.”

“I can run for miles without stopping. I can memorize all kinds of lists.” I point at the sign for the pool. “I can spell .”

My unconscious mind is very powerful and it wants me to keep living, I do not tell him.

He taps a fat finger against his cheek, then pushes back the curtain and shouts for someone called No Name. I remember Ms. Neuman telling me and Marcus to never trust anyone without a proper Christian name.

* * *

No Name is tall as a giant. He has silver rings in his nose and in his bottom lip, one in each eyebrow. He’s dressed in black jeans and a black hoodie and black sneakers without laces. In exchange for helping him, I will get a room for the night. It’s unclear what he needs help with. In fact, he doesn’t seem to think he needs help at all.

“I don’t want her,” he says when the manager introduces us.

“You were almost caught the last time.” The manager hands No Name a sheet of paper, folded in half. “You need a lookout.”

He jams the paper into his pocket. “You sure these are empty?”

“I’m sure,” the manager says. “I just called them. Twice.”

No Name stalks into a concrete courtyard, where shriveled brown plants sit frozen in clay pots. We pass a swimming pool that looks like no pool I have ever seen before. A giant pink clamshell hangs over it like a very beautiful awning. I stop and watch the water lap at the edges of the night.

“Keep up,” No Name calls over his shoulder, and I forget about the pool and chase after him.

We walk along an open hallway, to a corner room on the ground floor. He slips a key into the door and we disappear inside. The room is dark. I move through a cloud of tiny bugs. I can’t see them, but I can feel the itch of infestation move down a finger, across the back of my neck. One bug gets stuck in my eye. I’m supposed to stay by the door and listen for voices, footsteps. If someone tries to enter the room, I’m supposed to say that I work for the motel and there is a plumbing emergency under way inside and it is not a thing anyone would want to smell or see. He starts with the drawers by the TV and I catch the gold glint of a watch. The lights from outside wash the blinds in a soft glow.